Faculty of Science, Information Technology and Engineering
ITECH6502: Data Communications Management
Assignment 1
Instruction
This assignment is to be completed by groups of two students. Each group is to work together to submit and present single group submission and presentation. The written submission is to include an Individual Statement of Contribution (as attached at the end of this document) signed by each student that identifies who contributed to each part of the solution and presentation.
Due Dates and Weighting
This assignment consists of two parts:
Assignment Part Mark Description Due
Written submission 20% 2500 word essay Friday, Week 11
Presentation 10% 15 minute presentation Submitted electronically Friday Week 9
Delivered: Tutorial – Week 10-11
Assignment Overview
The Data Communications Management course has described a layered model of networking along with details of physical implementations that together support a wide range of possible networking scenarios. This assignment sheet describes sample scenarios of a number of companies/schools/institutions giving details of the business model and practical requirements for the day-to-day operation of each company. For your assignment you will need to select a company/school/institution and then describe the various network implementations that will be required in order to satisfy the requirements.
You are encouraged to discuss your proposed solutions with other students but your submission must be entirely in your own words. Read the section below on plagiarism and note that your written submission and presentation might require submission to Turnitin to be checked for similarity with web sources and other students’ work.
The marking scheme, which is given in detail below, particularly rewards the way in which you relate your specific proposals to the material presented in the Course.
Sample Assignment Scenarios
Note: These are sample scenarios and to be used as a basis for the basic requirements for the company/school/institution you select. You are free to creatively (but plausibly!) extend the requirements of the company/school/institution that you choose.
Insert file name here
Scenario A. Immaculate Primary School
Immaculate Primary School was built in 2010 to cater for between 240 and 450 local students between the ages of 5 – 12 years old in Grades Prep-6.
State government funding has allowed the school to provide all students with their own iPads for eLearning applications, writing assignments, accessing the Internet and undertaking school projects. Each IPad can access the school’s wireless network. There are also PCs in each classroom, the staff office and reception, which are wired to the school’s LAN, and each staff member also has a laptop and a tablet.
The school has four blocks – the Alfa Block contains 6 classrooms for Grade Prep to Grade Four.
The Beta Block contains 4 classrooms for Grade Five and Six, as well as the Library. The Gamma Block houses the Administration Building which has a Reception area, staffroom, a large teachers’ office and the Principal’s Office. The Delta Block houses a multi-purpose room, server room, equipment storage areas and the cleaners’ store cupboard.
The school has 15 teaching staff, a principal, 6 administrative staff and 4 cleaners.
The school principal has the following basic requirements:
• Support for all staff laptops
• Desktop support and an online printer for all classrooms
• Support for student and staff tablets
• Web Server support and Web content management
• Maintenance of the central file server in the server room
All Internet access is provided through a Proxy server which redirects all web requests to cached web content managed by the Victorian Education Department. This provides safe Web access to students and staff. It also ensures no student or staff member is exposed to pornographic or otherwise illicit or unsafe web content.
Scenario B. QV Net
“QV Net” is a Melbourne-based company that provides a customized Pay TV service throughout Victoria. It has a team of sales representatives throughout Victoria, who sell Pay TV plans and peripheral equipment to residential customers state-wide.
The manager wants to modernize the company’s computer systems, particularly providing remote access to its mobile sales team, which currently travels throughout Victoria, covering urban, regional and rural areas. She wants to provide each of them with a laptop computer.
The proposed network will link the reception, offices and warehouse areas. All users will require Internet and e-mail access. Among other features, the new software will enable the Company to develop and maintain an e-commerce site through which new and existing clients will be able to make enquiries and place orders. The sales representatives will also be able to manage their purchases and sales data over the Internet.
The company head office has a main building with a reception area facing the street, ten offices for management and sales staff, a conference room and a communal staff room. A second, larger building sits on the back of the block, which acts as a warehouse and dispatch centre for the peripheral devices. The company consists of the Manager, the Assistant Manager (Operations), the Assistant Manager (Finance and Admin), a Receptionist, and the Secretary to the Manager, eight Sales Representatives, and ten warehouse staff. All of the staff will need their own laptops on the network, except for the warehouse staff who will be able to share a PC that can still be placed within the Warehouse. The manager also indicated that a small, lockable room off the side of the warehouse may be used to house the main components such as the server, and the communal staff area has space for the networked printer.
Scenario C. Damascus Secondary College
Damascus Secondary College was established in 1980 and has grown from an initial enrolment of 200 students to approximately 2700 today. The school caters for all year levels from Year 7 to Year 12, with enrolments projected to grow to 3500 by 2016. All teachers and support staff work to provide a teaching pedagogy reflective of 21st Century designs including ICT rich environments and Personalised Learning for all students.
The school has recently undertaken infrastructure works, replacing portable classrooms across the grounds with permanent buildings. It has a main administration building, with a reception, principal’s office, assistance principal’s office, staff room, library, utility room and a large meeting room with video conferencing capabilities. It has three further buildings, each of which houses twelve classrooms and a dedicated computer lab with school-imaged pcs for student use.
Next year, the school is introducing a ‘Bring Own Digital’ program, in which students will be required to purchase their own iPad to use for their studies. These iPads will be configured with a school-image so that the security of the network can be maintained. Teaching staff will also be issued with iPads, in addition to their existing laptops.
The school has a Principal, an Assistant Principal, 55 teaching staff, 10 administrative staff and 5 cleaners.
The school caters for the following basic ICT requirements:
• Desktop support for all staff laptops
• Desktop support for five PCs and an online printer in each classroom and fifty computers and two online printers in the library
• Support for student and staff iPads
• Support for dedicated computer labs, each of which houses fifty computers
• Support for video-conferencing
• Web Server support and Web content management
• Maintenance of the central file server in the utility room
All Internet access is provided through a Proxy server which redirects all web requests to cached web content managed by the Victorian Education Department. This provides safe Web access to students and staff. It also ensures no student or staff member is exposed to illicit web content.
Scenario D. Dial for Less
Dial for Less is a VOIP (Voice Over IP) company. Their customers pay for an account on the Dial for Less SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) server and then are able to configure their home or mobile phone equipment to make purely digital phone conversations in which their voice is digitized before being sent through the SIP server and the Internet to a gateway near to the phone they are calling. The reverse (digital to analog) transformation happens in that gateway.
The Dial for Less company is spread between two offices.
One office houses the twelve staff who administers the client accounts. The company web server is located here.
The second office, at a separate but nearby location, houses the seven technical staff and the SIP server. This server communicates using IP with the clients on one side and on the other side through IP with a gateway near to the phone being called.
Dial for Less rents space in normal telephone exchanges around the world in order to install these gateways that change the IP conversation back to voice.
Common Assumptions to all Scenarios
The following assumptions are to be considered common:
• Certain computers (e.g. the web server) require a higher capacity network
• Separate sections/departments require separate networks that are interconnected
• The school networks are connected to the Internet but require protection
• Some transactions, with stakeholders or other institutions/companies, require security
Special note/instruction
Note that this is a GROUP Assignment and Teamwork is ESSENTIAL. The team need to break up the assignment into smaller tasks and all tasks MUST be evenly distributed and assigned among team members. Also all completed tasks must be REVIEWED by all members. Marks to individual team members may vary if reported “lack of participation/involvement” by other member and the quality of individually assigned tasks.
Plagiarism
The following is extracted from the Description for this Course. Please read and understand this and note that Turnitin submission might be required.
It is important to learn from the work of others and you are encouraged to explore the library, World Wide Web resources and have discussions with other students. However work for assessment must be entirely the student's own work.
Plagiarism is the presentation of the expressed thought or work of another person as though it is one's own without properly acknowledging that person.
You must not allow other students to copy your work and must take care to safeguard against this happening. In cases of copying, normally all students involved will be penalised equally; an exception will be if you can demonstrate the work is your own and you took reasonable care to safeguard against copying.
Plagiarism is a serious offence. As set out in the University Regulation 6.1.1 students who are caught plagiarising will, for a first offence, be given a zero mark for that task. A second offence will result in a failing grade for the Course(s) involved and any subsequent offence will be referred to the Student Discipline Committee.
Assignment Specification and Marking Scheme
Written Assignment (20% of Course total)
The written report will consist of approximately 2500 words that describe the networking installation(s) required by the chosen company/school/institution. The marks (out of 100) will be awarded as follows:
Criteria Marks
Available
Introduction that will include the brief details of the company / school / institution chosen,
including its floor plan to cater for its ICT requirements, its ICT requirements emphasizing the networking and data communications, and the challenges for the solution(s). 15
Attention throughout your work to the way in which your proposals relate to a layered network model. 10
Detailed suggestions for implementation that cover all aspects of the company / school / institution’s vision, mission and operations. 40
List, in general terms, the equipment and accessories that .must be purchased for the solution and an estimated cost 10
Any assumptions that you have made. A conclusion that summarises your recommendations and discussions. 10
Satisfactory standard of presentation and expression. 5
Course material referencing that relates all material suggestions to a lecture and slide in the course. 5
Wider referencing that shows sources that you have read in providing detail for your proposal. 5
Presentation (10% of Course total)
The presentation will consist of a maximum of 15 slides that will be presented to your tutorial group within 15 minutes including question time of approximately 2-3 minutes. The purpose of the presentation is to communicate with your listeners about the solution(s) that you are proposing. The marks (out of 100) will be awarded as follows:
Criteria Marks
Available
Introduction that will include brief details of the company / school / institution chosen, its ICT
requirements emphasizing the networking and data communications, and the challenges for the solution(s). 20
Good summary of the more detailed content
• The slides should show the main features
• Your oral presentation should provide more details 30
Relationship of presented material to a wider, layered model of networking 20
Oral presentation (e.g. not reading from the slides, engagement with your audience) 10
Quality of the slides 10
Response to questions, indicating that you have adequate understanding of the presentation contents 10
Individual Statement of Contribution
Student Number
Student Name
The other team member in my group was:
Student Number
Student Name
I have individually prepared the solution for the followin g tasks in this Assignment:
•
I have been involved in group collaboration, discussion and review of the following tasks in this Assignment:
•
I feel that, overall, my contribution to this Assignment w ould equal _____ % of the total work submitted.
Signature:
Date: